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Early dynasties : 

The origin of the name Maharashtra is unclear. It may come from the word rathi (chariot) whose drivers formed an army (maharathis). They probably migrated south and settled in the upland area in the 600's. There they mingled with aboriginal tribes.

The territories making up present-day Maharashtra formed part of several Indian empires. The earliest empire to control the region was the Mauryan. Its most famous ruler was the emperor Asoka, who lived during the 200's B.C. (see ASHOKA).

Between the 700's and the 1300's there were a number of Hindu kingdoms. These included the Satavahana, the Kalacuri, the Rastrakuta, the Chalukya, and the Yadavas. The first Muslim dynasty was founded in 1307 and was followed by a string of others. The Muslims used Persian as the language of the court and this had a marked influence on the development of the Marathi language.

Rise of the Marathas :

In the 1400's and 1500's, the Maharashtra region went through a religious revival influenced by the "Sants" of bhakti a devotional Hindu religion (see INDIA, LITERATURE OF). By the middle of the 1500's, Maharashtra consisted of several small kingdoms ruled by Maratha chieftains who spent much of their time fighting each other. In a reign that lasted from 1627 to 1680, the Marathan prince Shivaji welded these various Marathan kingdoms into a powerful state. The power of the new Marathan state was based on a strong, well-organized army. It threatened the Mughal empire in the north, weakened it through constant military campaigns, and contributed to its downfall.

The last Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, spent nearly the whole of the second half of his reign fighting the Marathas in the Deccan Plateau. Aurangabad is named after him. See AURANGZEB.

The Mughal Empire could not withstand this sustained onslaught and gradually withdrew. During the 1700's, nearly all western and central India and large portions of northern and eastern India came under the control of a Marathan confederacy. The imperial ambitions of the Marathas were shattered by the Afghans, who defeated them in the third Battle of Panipat in 1761, and later by the British, who fought them in three wars and eventually overcame them in 1817. The British administration annexed a large portion of Maratha territory to form a colonial administrative unit called the Bombay Presidency.

British rule :

Under the British, the Bombay Presidency administered western India. Bombay (now Mumbai) developed from seven small islands inhabited by Koli fishermen and their families. The East India Company had leased all of the islands from the British government, which in its turn had received them from Portugal in the late 1600's (see MUMBAI).

To begin with, Bombay's fortunes rested on shipbuilding, which used the local Malabar teak. Later, the city took over from Surat in Gujarat as the company's main centre on the western coast of India. From this time onward it grew rapidly. The land between the islands was reclaimed, new streets were laid out, and impressive buildings were erected. Much of this progress was due to the energy and business acumen of the town's Parsees. Soon Bombay became the commercial capital of India and the place where the majority of Europeans arrived in India.

Independence :

Indian opposition to British colonial rule found considerable support in Maharashtra. Several prominent nationalist and revolutionary leaders who were born in the region became actively involved in the struggle for independence. They included Dadabhoy Nauoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

When India gained independence in 1947, the Bombay Presidency became Bombay state. In the following year, the government merged the former princely state of Baroda and some others with Bombay. With further reorganization in 1956, large areas of the former Hyderabad princely state and Madhya Pradesh became part of the large state. It had a Gujarati-speaking population in the north and a Marathi-speaking population in the south. As a result of demands from these two groups for separate states, the Indian government divided Bombay along linguistic lines into present-day Gujarat and Maharashtra, in 1960.

Recent developments :

In 1993, an earthquake devastated 50 villages in southern Maharashtra. The quake measured 6.5 on the Richter scale. Final estimates put the death toll at 11,000.